Tag Archives: class

CfP: Manpower and the Armies of the British Empire in the Two World Wars

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Royal Military College of Canada
Kingston, Ontario
8-9 November 2018

Raising armies is more than counting people, putting them into uniform, and assigning them to formations. It was, and remains, an exceedingly complex business. It demands efficient measures and processes for recruitment and selection in voluntary military systems and equally efficient measures for registration and assignment in armies built on conscription. It demands training establishments capable of transforming factory workers and farmers into riflemen, in addition to providing them with officers, staffs, and commanders to lead them. It demands balance between the needs of the armed services, industry, and agriculture. And, often overlooked, it demands medical services to mend soldiers when wounded, and programs and pensions to look after them when demobilised. How did the the British Empire and Commonwealth mobilize manpower for the armed services, agriculture, and industry during the two world wars? And how did they care for veterans, both able-bodied and disabled, when the fighting was over?

“Manpower and the Armies of the British Empire in the Two World Wars” will bring together a diverse group of distinguished historians, junior scholars and graduate students to undertake a multifaceted examination of army mobilization for Britain, India, and the dominions. Confirmed speakers include: Gary Sheffield (University of Wolverhampton), Richard Grayson (Goldsmiths, University of London), Kent Fedorowich (University of the West of England), Peter Dennis (University of New South Wales), Jessica Meyer (University of Leeds), Kaushik Roy (Jadavpur University), Jonathan Fennell (King’s College London), Daniel Byers (Laurentian University), Ian McGibbon (Ministry of Culture and Heritage, New Zealand), Ian van der Waag (Stellenbosch University), and Meghan Fitzpatrick (Royal Military College of Canada).

The conference organizing committee solicits proposals for papers along the lines of three basic themes:
(1) recruitment/conscription and selection
(2) training, employment and the experience of soldiers
(3) demobilization and veterans’ care.
We would also welcome papers that examine manpower in relation to culture, class, gender, race, or disability.

Proposals should include a 200-300-word abstract accompanied by a one-page CV. Proposals should be emailed to Symposium-Colloque2018@rmc-cmr.ca no later than 22 June 2018. Cornell University Press will publish the proceedings of the conference.

CfP: Situating Empire: The Great War and Its Aftermath

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Graduate Student Conference “Situating Empire: The Great War and Its Aftermath”
History Department, Harvard University
November 15-16, 2018

We invite graduate students to submit proposals for a workshop exploring the impact of the Great War upon the history and configuration of Empires. This workshop is intended only for advanced doctoral students who have completed substantive archival research. Its priority is to provide close readings and feedback on research that speaks to theme themes at hand. Accepted papers will be grouped on panels, with one faculty commentator per presenter. Participation in this workshop provides an opportunity to engage in lively and lengthy discussion with faculty, and an emerging cohort of doctoral candidates from around the world.

Opening remarks will be provided by Professor Erez Manela. Our workshop’s keynote speaker will be Professor Heather Streets-Salter, and Professor Antoinette Burton will join us for a plenary panel.

This workshop will host nine papers comprised of panels of three, occurring over two days. Themes of the workshop include (but are not limited to): the constitution of imperial boundaries with respect to space, mobility, race, and class; intellectual history; histories of mobility; legal history; and the history of science and/or medicine.

Submission Guidelines and Funding
We encourage submissions from individuals at all universities. Interested graduate students should submit a 300-word proposal and one-page Curriculum Vitae (in either Word or PDF format) to greatwar.empire.harvard@gmail.com. Proposals must be received by March 30, 2018. Papers for each panel will be selected in accordance with the workshop’s themes and for their potential to facilitate dialogue across regional specializations. All participants will be notified of participation by May 1, 2018. Given that this workshop requires an engagement with the written work of other participants, all panelists are asked to submit their papers one month prior to the workshop. All questions should be directed to the email above.

We anticipate being able to reimburse reasonable travel and lodging expenses for participants who do not receive sufficient funding from their institutions of study. Due to a limited budget, however, this amount will not exceed $500. Meals will be provided throughout the workshop.

CFP: Vulcan Early-Career Prize: social history of military technology

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The Vulcan Early-Career Prize for the best article in the field of social history of military technology

Vulcan: The International Journal of the Social History of Military Technology invites submissions for its inaugural Early-Career Prize. The winning article as judged by the editorial board will be published in the 2018 volume (6) of Vulcan, and will officially be announced as the prize winner in the journal volume as well as on the journal webpage. The winner will receive a cash prize of €500. The prize is open to graduate students who are currently registered at a higher education institute, or to those who have obtained their doctoral degree after January 1, 2012.

Vulcan is a peer-reviewed journal, appearing in one issue per year, that addresses military technology as both agent and object of social change. Vulcan publishes original research articles, book reviews, and short notes and communications that go beyond traditional hardware stories of military technology. Academic and popular histories of weapons, warships and other physical manifestations of warfare have tended to assume a strictly utilitarian or rational basis for invention, innovation and use. Such approaches may ignore some very important questions: What are the social values, attitudes, and military (and non-military) interests that shape and support or oppose these technologies? What are the consequences of gender, race, class, and other aspects of the social order for the nature and use of military technology? Or, more generally, how do social and cultural environments within the military itself or in the larger society affect military technological change? And the indispensable corollary: how does changing military technology affect other aspects of society and culture?

Vulcan casts a wide net, taking a very broad view of technology and its wider ramifications that encompasses not only the production, distribution, use, and replacement of weapons and weapon systems, but also communications, logistic, scientific, medical, and other technologies of military relevance. Papers may range widely in space and time, and we welcome especially submissions on non-Western and premodern topics. Themes might include the ways in which social factors (including politics and economics), and other extra-military factors have influenced and been influenced by the invention, R&D, diffusion, or use of military technologies; the roles that military technologies play in shaping and reshaping the relationships between institutions; historiographical or museological topics that discuss how military technology has been analyzed, interpreted, and understood in other fields, other cultures, and other times.
Submission Requirements

Articles should be based extensively on primary research, must not have been previously published in another form or outlet, and should not be currently under consideration by another journal or book series. Essays (between 8,000 and 12,000 words) should be written in American English, and conform to The Chicago Manual of Style (15th Edition). Papers should include an abstract of approximately 150 words and 5–8 keywords. Detailed submission instructions can be found at brill.com/vulc. Submissions for the prize should be submitted online through the Vulcan Editorial Manager by 31 December 2017. In order to allow for sufficient time for the peer review process, early submissions are welcomed.

For further information, please contact the Editor-in-Chief, Steven A. Walton at sawalton@mtu.edu.

CfP: Meredith College Symposium on World War I

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Meredith College and the North Carolina Museum of History announce an interdisciplinary symposium April 6-8, 2017 on the local, national, and global experience of World War I. We seek papers offering multiple perspectives on the conflict, from the front lines to the home fronts, addressing issues of politics, economics, race, gender, class, culture, and the military. We also encourage submissions from both graduate and undergraduate students for specialized panels.

Proposals for papers should include email address, brief CV with institutional affiliation, paper title, and a one-paragraph abstract to guide the program committee in the assembly of panels. Whole panel proposals are also welcome; these should include the titles of each individual paper as well as a title for the panel itself and identifying information (email address and brief CV with institutional affiliation) for all participants.

Please share this information with all interested faculty and students; direct any questions and submit proposals via email attachments to amarritt@meredith.edu.

The deadline for submission is January 15, 2017.
Conference URL